Five weeks out from Election Day, Democrat Kathlelen Kane leads
Republican David Freed in the race
for Pennsylvania attorney general. But the
campaign could still pivot on the opinions of a broad swath of undecided
voters, according to a new Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll.

Kane, a former
Lackawanna County prosecutor, leads Freed 33 percent to 27 percent in the
survey of 427 likely voters. But nearly four in 10 voters (38) percent are
still undecided in the battle for the state’s top law enforcement post.

When so-called “leaners” are factored in, Kane’s lead over Freed,
the elected distirict attorney of Cumberland County, expands to a 44
percent to 35 percent advantage. But a broad portion of respondents are still on
the fence.

Despite that, Kane’s early lead is an encouraging sign for
Democrats trying to break a four-decade-old Republican lock on the office, Muhlenberg pollster Christopher Borick said.

Kane
is the first female major party candidate to be nominated for attorney general.
And, if she wins in November, she would be the first woman to hold the office
since it became an elected post in 1980.

“Anytime you see a lead like this for a Democrat in the Pennsylvania
attorney general’s race, it’s notable given the track record,” Borick said Friday. “There’s a large number of undecideds.
People still really aren’t tuned in yet.”.

The poll, conducted from Sept. 22 through Wednesday, has a margin
of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Last week, Tomalis said the experts on the Pennsylvania Technical Advisory Committee concluded that neither budget cuts nor rising accountability benchmarks had any bearing on the reduction in math and reading scores, which caused more than 600 fewer schools to hit federal testing standards.

"We hit the reset button on student achievement on our PSSA," Tomalis said last Friday in releasing the results of the 2012 Pennsylvania System of School Assessments.

But the chairwoman of the advisory committee on Thursday said the committee never reached those conclusions. She said Tomalis may have exaggerated the results of the committee's statistical analysis of scores.

"He might have overstated it just a little," said Marianne Perie, senior associate of the Center for Assessment in Dover, N.H. "We have no data on how those measures affected the accuracy of the achievement measure, so our conversations were merely speculation."

Since making his claims last Friday, Tomalis has come under fire for asserting a clamp-down on cheating is the sole reason student test scores went down, a decline that led to fewer schools making so-called adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs challenging Pennsylvania's voter identification law in Commonwealth Court tried to seal the deal on an injunction blocking the law by presenting a battery of witnesses who said they'd been stymied in their attempts to get the state-issued ID they'll need to vote on Election Day.

"I told them 'I'm handicapped. I've dona all I can do. I'm not going to vote,'" Doris Clark, 68, of Philadelphia, said, as she testified Thursday on her three efforts to obtain a voting-only identification card issued by the Department of State.

La Keisha Davis, 35, testified that she made repeated trips and spent hours in line with her young son in tow as she tried to get an ideintification card from a PennDOT office in Philadelphia.

Another witness, Jessica Hockenbury, 19, of Pittsburgh, testified that a state Department of Transportation employee had told her "We're not giving out free Voter ID anymore" when she tried to obtain the card from a motor-license office in downtown Pittsburgh.

Community organizers from groups such as the Service Employees International Union and OnePittsburgh also testified on their efforts to help eligible voters obtain the Department of State-issued identification cards.

On Tuesday, the Department of State announced it had relaxed the standards to obtain the voting-only identification cards.

Under the revised process:

Registered voters will no longer have to show that they cannot qualify for a driver's license or PennDOT photo ID card to obtain a voter identification card from the Pennsylvania Department of State.

The new process eliminates the need for voters to make two trips to a PennDOT office so state workers can verify that they are registered to vote and confirm their identity.

A voter may obtain a Department of State ID by providing his or her name, date of birth and Social Security number and address. No proof of address is required.

PennDOT will produce an ID card even if it cannot verify that a person is registered to vote. The ID card will be held by the Department of State to be issued when a voter registration application is processed.

The witnesses who testified Thursday made their efforts to obtain the cards before the new standards had taken effect.

Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
It's a gray and rainy day as we head into the final weekend of September 2012. And what
better place to spend it than in a cozy courtroom with five or 10 of your closest friends taking notes on one of the most closely watched stories in the country?

We're talking, of course, about the ongoing #VoterID hearing. And, desperate grab for an opening premise out of the way, it's also how we're going to launch into your indispensable countdown of the Top Five Stories making news this 27th day of September.

1. Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson wraps up his inquest on the state's voter identification law this morning. The task before him: to determine whether the state is getting proper ID into the hands of voters who need it in time for Election Day.

Volunteers visiting more than half of the state's PennDOT motor licensing centers in mid-September found that many come up short when it came to providing accurate information about the new voting-only ID card jointly issued with the Department of State.

Employees tended not to be well-versed in the law's requirements, the center's director, Sharon Ward, said. But "when the supervisors were called over, they tended to be pretty well-informed about the law. So it seems that there’s a difference in what the line staff’s level of knowledge is and what the supervisor’s level is,” she said.

2. Meanwhile, the law's author, Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, tells the Tribune-Review that implementation of the law has been too lax and that the new ID cards, which are intended to allow more people to vote (which we thought was the idea behind this whole democracy thing) will actually encourage voter fraud.

"I think the executive branch has gone farther than what the law allows them to do,” Metcalfe told the newspaper.

The executive branch, however, "“respectfully disagree[s] with Representative Metcalfe,” Corbett administation spokesman Kevin Harley said. "Our interpretation of the law is the state does have the authority to issue [new] voter ID. We’re trying to implement the law in a fair and effective manner, and to provide a photo ID to voters who don’t have one.”

As if the flap over the false campaign advertisement wasn't interesting enoigh, tensions in the race for attorney general ratcheted up another notch today with charges that Democratic candidate Kathleen Kane claimed an endorsement from the PA State Police Troopers Association that she didn't actually get.

"This is a new level of deception from Kathleen Kane," Freed's campaign manager, Tim Kelly, said in an e-mail. "Whether she's running television ads that completely misrepresent her record or now claim law enforcement endorsements out of thin air, it's clear that Kathleen Kane and telling the truth are at significant odds with one another."

After more than 18 months on the job, Pennsylvania voters are still giving Gov. Tom Corbett poor marks on
his job performance.

Barely a third of voters (36 percent) say they approve of the Republican's tenure in a new Quinnipiac University poll out this morning, compared to 47 percent who disapprove. And 42 percent of respondents to a new Franklin & Marshall poll say they have a somewhat or strongly unfavorable impression of Corbett, compared to 31 percent with a somewhat or strongly favorable impression.

The numbers in the F&M poll are unchanged from August as are those who are undecided about the Republican governor, whose cuts to public education and social welfare programs have made him the target of protests from unions and left-leaning activist groups.

Since March of 2010, between 14 and 17 percent of voters have said they were undecided on Corbett, who served two terms as attorney general from 2004 until his election as governor in 2010. The number of undecided voters spiked at 24 percent in March 2011, a month after Corbett introduced his first state budget.

In addition, only one in six respondents to the F&M poll say they believe Corbett did an excellent or good job while attorney general in investigating the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse case at Penn State University. Nearly two-thirds of respondents gave him fair or poor marks.

Elsewhere, nearly six in 10 respondents (59 percent) to the F&M poll say they support the state's controversial voter identification law. And just 2 percent of respondents said they lacked the ID needed to cast their ballots on Election Day.

The F&M poll of 632 state voters was conducted from Sept. 18 through Sunday for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent. The survey includes 392 interviews with likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.

The Quinnipiac poll was conducted from Sept. 18 through Monday The sample.includes 1,180 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Allentown chief executive Ed Pawlowski are among the urban mayors who have signed onto a letter to Congressional leaders warning that federal budget sequestration could have a harsh effect on the nation's metro economies.

The Sept. 21 letter, sent on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, landed in the in-boxes of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., House Speaker John Boehner and House and Senate floor leaders Nancy Pelosi of California and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

For those of you who have forgotten, the upcoming "sequestration" process was mandated in the law that created the Congressional supercommittee on debt that met in glorious, high-profile fashion and then utterly failed to do anything -- at all. Among its members, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.

Here's the nut graf of the letter:

"We are particularly concerned with deep reductions in non-defense discretionary spending,one-third of which is directed to state and local programs: 36 percent is directed to education; 28 percent to housing and community development; 18 percent to health and the environment; ten percent to workforce; and five percent to public safety and disaster response. The additional cuts scheduled to occur through sequestration will bring domestically appropriated funding well below historical levels as a share of the economy,forcing inevitable cuts to a number of critical local services and dramatic job losses for teachers, first responders, and health care workers."

It goes on to warn that:

"Any federal budget solution that does not make the necessary federal investments in metro infrastructure, education and public safety will impede the national economic growth necessary for our nation to maintain global competitiveness and future fiscal health. The private sector needs this investment to achieve the productivity improvements and innovation that will lead to the economic growth our country desperately needs.

Discretionary spending has already been significantly reduced in recent years. As our local metro economies - which drive the national economy - continue the struggle to recover from the worst national recession in decades, we cannot bear the financial burden that additional discretionary spending cuts would require just to meet the most emergent needs of our constituents."

The poll of 632 Pennsylvania voters was from Sept. 18 through Sunday for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent. The survey includes 392 interviews with likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.

And in a new Quinnipiac University swing-state poll out this morning, Obama leads Romney in the key states of Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania:

“Gov.
Mitt Romney had a bad week in the media and it shows in these key swing
states,” Quinnipiac pollster Peter A. Brown said in a statement.“The furor over his 47 percent remark almost certainly is a
major factor in the roughly double-digit leads President Barack Obama has in Florida,
Ohio and Pennsylvania. The debates may
be Romney’s best chance to reverse the trend in his favor.”

Casey holds a narrower 49 percent to 43 percent lead over Smith in the Quinnipiac canvass.

The Quinnipiac poll was conducted from Sept. 18 through Monday. In Pennsyvlania, the sample includes 1,180 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent.

Democratic Attorney General candidate Kathleen Kane has raised more than $1.47 million since May 15,
compared to Republican rival David Freed's $869,000, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Department of State.

With $1.472 million available to her, Kane, a former Lackawanna County prosecutor, spent $250,000 between May 15 and Sept. 17 and had $1.22 million on hand, the filing showed.

Kane reported in-kind contributions, in which a good or service but not cash, changes hands, of $10,510 and debt totaling $1.8 million.

Kane's spokesman, Josh Morrow, said the debt stemmed from loans Kane's family, the owners of a large Scranton trucking firm, made to her during her spring primary campaign against former U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy of Bucks County.

With $1.3 million available to spend, Freed, the elected district attorney of Cumberland County, reported expenditures of $291,718 and had $1.02 million on hand. Freed reported in-kind contributions worth $30,873 and debt totaling $71,170, his filing showed,

Unlike Kane. Freed ran unopposed in the spring primary. His spokesman, Tim Kelly, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Good Afternoon, Everyone.Deputy Secretary of State Shannon Royer was the post-lunch witness in Judge Robert Simpson's courtroom as the #VoterID hearing continued this afternoon.

In about an hour on the stand, plaintiff lawyer David Gersch tartly grilled the bureaucrat on the state's multimillion-dollar advertising effort to make sure voters had the ID they needed before Eleciton Day. That effort took the form of direct mail, television and radio spots and billboard campaigns.

Gersch focused specifically on the text of of the "Just Show It" video and radio advertisements that have been airing statewide for the last few weeks. The multimedia advertisements make no mention of the new voter-only Deparrtment of State has been offering since Aug. 27.

In response, Royer said voters could learn about the different forms of ID eligible for voting by visiting a VoterID-specific website. The site has received hundreds of thousands of visits and a dedicated hotline has received about 4,000 phone calls a week, he said.

(an image from the state's official website)

The end result: While Royer said he was confident that the state had made every effort it could to reach voters, he could not say how effective that had been or whether it had resulted in voters actually getting the ID they needed.

The state "has reached out in every way possible to let [voters] know about this law," Royer said. He also extensively discussed the state's efforts to reach the young, minority and elderly voters who were specifically mentioned in the state Supreme Court ruling that kicked the law back to Simpson for further work.

The state has placed advertisements on Hispanic and African-American radio stations and placed ads in newsppaers serving those communities as well in student newspapers, Royer said.

"We know the population we need to target and we targeted them in our media effort," he said.

Here's the big takeaway from this morning's Commonwealth Court session on Pennsyvlania's voter identification law: The Department of State and PennDOT have eased the requirements to get a voter-only photo identification card.

And instead of serving as the "last resort" for ID, it will now be among the first options offered to those seeking photo ID to vote in November.

To obtain a card, a person only has to show up at a PennDOT motor license center, give their name, date of birth and Social Security number.

The state is no longer requiring proof of residency. Once the person is confirmed as a registered voter, the ID will be issued, PennDOT Deputy Secretary Kurt Myers testified this morning.

In a statement e-mailed to reporters, Secretary of State Carol Aichele said the new rules, which went into effect this morning statewide, will meet a Supreme Court ruling that identification cards be "liberally accessible" to those who need them.

Myers was the first witness in what was expected to be two days' worth of testimony before Judge Robert E. Simpson, who's been charged by the high court with determining whether the state is getting proper ID into the hands of those who need them and if voters are being disenfranchised. The high court's action comes in response to its ruling on a request to keep the law from going into effect with the Nov. 6 election.

Good Tuesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
It's not February. And it's not Groundhog Day. Yet we here at
Capitol Ideas World HQ can't help feel like we'll be trooping into familiar territory as we make the trek over to Commonwealth Court this morning.

There, at 10 a.m., Judge Robert E. Simpson will hear testimony from state officials on their efforts to get proper identification into the hands of every Pennsylvania voter who needs it before Election Day.

If Simpson decides that's not happening and that there's no guarantee even a single voter won't be disenfranchised, the state Supreme Court has told him to keep the law from taking effect this year.

Simpson has scheduled an extra day of testimony for Thursday at 10 a.m. in case he's unable to wrap up matters today. We'll be on hand for coverage, as will The Morning Call's ace courts reporter Peter Hall. Check back all day and on the Twitter feed for updates from the hearing.

Forget about what you’ve heard about Pennsylvania losing its status as a
battleground state – the race for
the White House here is as competitive as
ever.

Unless, of course, it isn’t.

Welcome to 10 minutes with political strategists Karl Rove and James
Carville, where no point is too small – or too partisan – to be bickered over.
Preferably in quick, 30-second soundbites.

“You don’t have to pull away. You just have to win,” Carville, the Democrat,
and onetime aide to President Bill Clinton said Monday. “The way it was
explained to me, the one who gets the most wins. We’re ahead. [Republican
nominee Mitt Romney] is at 45 percent. He’s always at 45 [percent].”

Rove, the Republican and former Bush White House political czar, parsed the
polling data, and had this to say instead:

“This race has tightened. The president, as an incumbent, should be
comfortable at 51 or 52 percent [in the polls]. He’s at 46, 47, 48 [percent].
The question is, will Mitt Romney be able to make the closing argument in the
next 43 days that he’s got a plan to move America forward?”

The two pundits' appearance at the Hershey Lodge for the annual dinner of the Pennsyvlania Chamber of Business and Industry came just hours after former Gov. Ed Rendell, himself now a pundit for MSNBC, weighed in on the race during today's Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon.

A loss or a draw means that "the Republican powers-that-be will give up the ship," and withdraw their financial and political support, Rendell said. .

"There's some talk of giving up the ship in Republican circles right now," he added. "When I say give up the ship, all the super-PAC money that's out there ... will go almost 100 percent to Congressional and and Senatorial races."

Asked about the importance of good debate showing later in the day in Hershey, Carville said Obama could better afford a poor showing than Romney.

“The onus is on him. He’s got to do well,” Carville said. “If he has a bad
one -- the president probably could afford –you probably wouldn’t want to have
one – but he’s in a better position to afford a bad debate than Romney would
be.

A loss or a draw means that "the Republican powers-that-be will give up the ship," and withdraw their financial and political support, Rendell said during a speech to the Pennsylvania Press Club..

"There's some talk of giving up the ship in Republican circles right now," the former two-term governor-turned-MSNBC pundit said. "When I say give up the ship, all the super-PAC money that's out there ... will go almost 100 percent to Congressional and and Senatorial races."

"The key for Romney campaign has got to be the first debate," Rendell said. "The first debate is upon us fairly soon. That's really Gov. Romney's last, best chance, He can turn the dynamic around in the first debate. There's no question about that."

"In a report to be released Monday, the civil rights group Advancement Project cites the potential impact
of newly restrictive photo identification laws, proof-of-citizenship requirements and late efforts in a few states to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls

“It has the impact of scaring people and reminding them of [immigration] raids and other kinds of law enforcement that have been targeted toward these communities,” said Penda D. Hair, a co-director of the Advancement Project, part of a coalition of liberal groups that oppose the new voting laws.

Proponents of the efforts to tighten voting laws, including several secretaries of state, say they want to root out voter fraud and are not targeting particular demographic groups.

In-person voting fraud is rare, studies have shown, but there have been recent cases of absentee ballot fraud, and small numbers of noncitizens are registered to vote. In Colorado, the secretary of state’s office estimated last year that as many as 11,000 noncitizens were registered to vote. But after checking a federal immigration database, the state announced this month that 141 noncitizens were registered and as few as 35 had cast ballots.

Several of the states with more restrictive laws and procedures, such as Colorado, have large Hispanic populations. As the deadline to register voters approaches in many states, the Advancement Project’s report warns that the new rules are working against efforts to register Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing demographic."

Here's a leftover from the Sunday chat shows. It's state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, squaring off on #VoterID.

For those of you playing along at home, Leach is the chairman of the Senate Democrats' re-election effort this fall. Yes. We're thinking the same thing -- with a caucus that small, it can't be that hard a job.

Turzai, in case you've forgotten, made national headlines back in June when he remarked that the controversial law, which requires people to show photo identification every time they vote, would deliver the state for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Though given recent polling data, that could be a heavy lift.

Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson will take testimony on Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the state's efforts to make sure no voter is left disenfranchised this fall. It's the result of a state Supreme Court ruling last week.

"WITH THE candidates for state attorney general little-known or noticed in this election cycle, the Republican State Leadership Committee decided to spend more than a half-million dollars to run a commercial in the Philadelphia television market defining Democrat Kathleen Kane as "soft" on rape.

But the GOP group, based in Washington, D.C., was quickly tangled in a mess of inaccuracy after citing two cases in the ad from Kane's time as an assistant district attorney in Lackawanna County. Kane, it turned out, played almost no role in those cases. The RSLC on Friday promised to edit the commercial to make it accurate.

But the original version of the ad kept running on four Philadelphia television stations Saturday and Sunday. A RSLC spokesman later said the edited version would start airing "Monday at the latest."

He did not respond when asked why the RSLC needed more than two days to edit the ad."

NOTE: We traveled with Kane through suburban Philadelphia on Saturday, At several stops, she accused Republicans of "putting people before politics" and characterized the advertisement as a "despicable lie."

Kane, who was apparently unaware the ad was still running, credited Republicans for at least making the decision to edit its content.

Good Monday Morning Fellow Seekers.
Pennsylvania’s public school students have been in class for weeks, but state lawmakers will finally return
to work today for an abbreviated fall voting session that could end up being as notable for what doesn’t get done as what does.

On the table: changes to Pennsylvania’s charter school law that have been fervently sought by Gov. Tom Corbett; fixes to the state’s Open Records law that could include, for the first time, putting Penn State and other state-related universities under its umbrella; and, perhaps, a renewed push at privatizing state-owned liquor stores.

Off the table until 2013 are such big-ticket issues as fixes to the state’s exploding public pension costs, and coming up with $2.5 billion in new money for road and bridge repairs.

Even as lawmakers return to work, at least two factors are conspiring against some — or any of the above — from happening. The first is the calendar. The second is classic election-year politics. All 203 House seats and half the 50-member Senate go before voters.

As of today, the state House has just 10 days on its voting calendar, the state Senate just eight before both chambers break in mid-October for an election-season recess. Neither chamber will return after the election, forsaking a “lame duck” session.

That means any bill not passed by one or both chambers and signed into law by Corbett before the current legislative session ends Nov. 30 will die, and will have to be reintroduced next year.

Click through for a quick snapshot of this season's legislative priorities.

A GOP group's ad portraying Democratic frontrunner Kathleen Kane as being "soft" on rape was pulled from the Philadelphia airwaves after objections from the rape victim's father.

The Republican State Leadership Committee in Washington produced the ad for GOP attorney general candidate David Freed, now says it will edit out the rape prosecution charge.

“Following the issuance of statements from those close to the case that did not come until today, the RSLC has chosen to remove the reference to the case and instead focus on numerous other instances in which Kane failed Pennsylvania victims of abuse,” the committee said."

Full story: http://mobile.philly.com/blogs/?wss=/philly/blogs/harrisburg_politics/&id=170813766

Good Friday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Another weekend is upon us. Hope you have something fun planned. With the mercury tipping south of 65
degrees these last few days, our thoughts have turned to the campaign trail and the inevitable diet of warmed-over rhetoric and road food that will sustain us through the first week of November.

So to get you -- and us -- on the way to the weekend, here's a quick rundown of the best and the rest of the day's political headlines. They start now.

Emerging From ...
... whichever of Dante's rings that is now kind enough to host him, GOP guru Karl Rove emerged yesterday to announce that he'd moved Pennsylvania from "lean Obama" to "safe Obama," our friends at Capitolwire report this morning.

Rove's analysis, which shows Republican candidate Mitt Romney 10 points behind President Barack Obama, comes as top Pennsylvania Republicans say the Keystone State is still in play. But the analysis could also echo further down the ballot.

"I think it’s of some concern to Republicans that think about this,” Franklin & Marshall College political analyst and pollster G. Terry Madonna, tells Capitolwire.

Rove's prognostication comes even as top GOP officials released an internal poll showing the two presidential candidates just a percentage point apart in Pennsylvania. Most public polls have given a six- to 11-point edge to Obama in the state.

“Why do they (state GOP) release a poll showing Obama with only a one-point lead? Why do you think they’re bringing surrogates in?” Madonna said. “…They don’t want the bottom to fall out of their turnout.”

Pennsylvania court administrator Zygmont Pines said residents in several parts of the state have received recorded phone calls or text messages from friends or family, saying that their names appear in the local paper for failing to show up for jury duty.

The messages direct the recipient to call a number for more information, where a recording advises the the caller that he or she faces a fine or jail term.

The recording ends by revealing that it is a joke and urging the caller to pass the number along to others to prolong the hoax.

In a related matter, the state branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs in the case have asked Simpson to issue a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of the controversial law without an evidentiary hearing.

In their motion, the plaintiffs argue that the state has no hope of getting ID into the hands of voters who need it before Election Day and can't guarantee that voters won't be disenfranchised in November.

Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Once again, we're on the road. So we're going to keep the usual jibber-jabber to an absolute minimum and get
on with your handy clip-and-save guide to the best of the day's political headlines.

1. Oh ... state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, don't ever change. We love you just the way you are.

In a radio interview with KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, everyone's favorite conservative firebrand let it slip that "lazy" people don't deserve to vote if they can't get the right kind of ID.

HOST: Are you absolutely convinced…that the methods to implement this law are effective and will in fact make sure no legitimate voter will be disenfranchised?

METCALFE:I don’t believe any legitimate voter that actually wants to exercise that right and takes on the according responsiblity that goes with that right to secure their photo ID will be disenfranchised. As Mitt Romney said, 47% of the people that are living off the public dole, living off their neighbors’ hard work, and we have a lot of people out there that are too lazy to get up and get out there and get the ID they need. If individuals are too lazy, the state can’t fix that.

When times are tough, people will go where they can to find money
– even if that hurts them over the long-
haul. And when they do, they often turn
to predatory payday lenders in other states and online, Pennsylvania’s top
banking regulator told a Senate panel Wednesday.

Riding the rails from Harrisburg to Philadelphia this afternoon, a pair of Massachusetts mayors warned the a
Mitt Romney White House would spell bad news for public infrastructure and mass-transit spending.

As the Bay State's governor, Republican Romney "cut public transportation funding," John Barrett, a Democrat and former mayor of the town of North Adams, Mass., said during a press conference outside Harrisburg's train station. "He doesn't understand how important it is for the middle class."

Barrett and Rob Dolan, the Democratic mayor of suburban Melrose, just outside Boston, took to the Amtrak-run, Keystone Corridor to sound their warnings on behalf of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

The two mayors were scheduled to make stops in Lancaster and Philadelphia, an Obama campaign spokeswoman said.

Dolan, who presides over a bedroom community about five miles from Boston, accused Romney of punting on infrastructure repairs and neglecting mass-transit while he was governor.

"He pushed the ball down the road," he said. And that's resulted in a dire need for infrastructure repairs in the state, he said.

Good Wednesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
We've all had them -- those hallucinatory nights, where you wake up in the darkness of
your own 3 a.m. of the soul, wondering why you're dreaming about Spencer Tracy chasing after you with a tin of kippered herring, all the while shouting "The loons! Do you hear the loons?"

Or maybe that's just us.

Speaking of feverish hallucinations, we could have sworn that the state Supreme Court handed down a ruling yesterday ordering a lower court to basically take a mulligan on the state's VoterID law by giving it until Oct. 2 to determine whether the state has gotten ID into the hands of people who need it. If not, the court ordered, then it has to keep the law from going into effect with the the Nov. 6 election.

While this means we are not entirely back to where we started from, it does mean at least several days of sitting on uncomfortable benches in Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson's courtroom, deprived of Twitter, and wondering how long you have until lunch.

Whether this is a step up from being chased by a cured fish-wielding Spencer Tracy across the topography of our subconscious is anyone's guess. But we needed a premise to get into today's post and, by God, we're pretty sure we found it.

A divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court has returned a challenge to Pennsylvania’s
voter identification law
to a lower court, ordering it to determine by Oct. 2 if
the state is making an effort to get identification into the hands of voters who
will need it on Election Day.

In an unsigned order issued Tuesday afternoon, the high court said that if
the Commonwealth Court to determine if the “procedures being used for the
deployment” of state-issued ID cards “comport with the requirement of liberal
access which the General Assembly attached to the issuance” of the cards.

If the lower court is “not still convinced in its predictive judgment that
there will be no voter disenfranchisement arising out of the Commonwealth’s
implementation of a voter identification requirement for purposes of the
upcoming election, that court is obliged to enter a preliminary injunction,” the
order reads.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, whose ranks included a 93-year-old Philadelphia
woman named Viviette Applewhite, said the hurdles their clients and many other
voters faced in obtaining a driver’s license or other photo ID effectively
denied them the fundamental right to vote.

Lawyers for Gov. Tom Corbett and Secretary of State Carol Aichele, whose
agency is charged with overseeing elections in the state, claimed there was no
evidence that the requirement would keep a significant number of people away
from the polls.

Two of the court’s Democratic members, Justices Seamus McCaffery and Deborah
Todd, filed sharply worded dissents, arguing that punting the case back to the
lower court wouldn’t produce new information and would waste time.

“In the end, it is this Court that must determine whether the Pennsylvania
Constitution requires the entering of a preliminary injunction prior to the
November election,” McCaffery wrote. “For the good of the electorate, and to
foster respect for the judiciary and the integrity of the electoral process, I
agree with Justice Todd that now is the time for this Court to make that
decision.”

Homegrown Keystoners who need to confirm their birth certificates usin state records will soon be able to do so with just one visit to a PennDOT motor license center, our pal Mary Wilson of WITF-FM in Harrisburg reports this morning.

Right now, Pennsylvania-born voters who want to confirm their birth records have to make two trips to their local PennDOT office, first to request the records, and then a second, 10 days later, to get their IDs once their birth records are verified.

The faster processing is expected to take just a matter of hours and the new system, which just requires one state computer to talk to another, is expected to be in "full swing" by next week, a spokesman for the Department of State tells the station.

Voting rights advocates welcomed the change.

“It’s a pretty significant change, because it’s not fun to go to PennDOT once, let alone twice,” Zack Stalberg, president of the Philadelphia-based voter advocacy group the Committee of Seventy, tells WITF-FM.

The rest of the day's news starts, as always, after the jump. And if we're really honest, it's only intended for the 5 or 10 percent of you who aren't dedicated Capitol Ideas readers. We know there's at least 47 percent of you who are in the bag and are utterly dependent on us for your news fix. We're not worried about you.

After a summer of negotiations, the Republican-controlled state Senate has reached agreement on a number of issues, the Times-Tribune of Scranton reports this morning. And it looks like we can expect a renewed push to bring Penn State and other-state related universities under the umbrella of the law.

"At the top of concerns is treatment of the state-relateds," Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, told the newspaper. In case you've forgotten, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln universities, as well as the University of Pittsburgh, are currently exempted from the law. The Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State led to calls to erase that exemption.

The rest of today's news starts now.

Gov. Tom Corbett Says ...
... he wouldn't read too much into a split-decision over the state's Voter ID law, WITF-FM in Harrisburg reports. The high court, divided 3-3, among Republicans and Democrats, heard oral arguments last week in Philadelphia.
“I think the justices can have differences of opinion and it comes from a philosophy of where they come from," Corbett said last week during an appearance in Lebanon County.
For those of you playing along at home, a 3-3 decision by the high court would uphold a lower court ruling that denied a request to keep the law from going into full effect with the Nov. 6 general election.

With a texting ban already on the books, a
western Pennsylvania lawmaker says he wants to try again to
force drivers to
hang up their handheld cellphones when they’re behind the wheel.

Rep. Joe Markosek, a Democrat from Allegheny County, says he plans to
introduce legislation this fall that would ban drivers from using handheld
devices unless they’re using a GPS device. Novice drivers would be prohibited
from using any handheld device while driving.

Now the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Markosek
formerly served as the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, where he
helped spearhead at least three previous failed efforts to pass a handheld cell
phone ban.

The state House and Senate return to work from their summer break on Sept. 24
and will be in session for just a handful of days before an campaign season
break in October brings all work to a halt for the year.

In an interview this afternoon, Markosek said he’s introducing the bill “to keep the
conversation going” on the issue and to tee it up for action in the new
legislative session that starts in January. He’s hoping that continued public
support – along with an influx of new lawmakers – might help the bill succeed
where past efforts have failed.

Of equal importance, he said, is educating the public about the hazards of cell phone use behind the wheel (the bill contains just such a provision) because “this is a behavioral issue and we can’t really legislate that."

Good Friday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
Technical gremlins and some timing issues have conspired to put us a touch behind schedule
this morning, so in the interest of brevity, here's a quick buffet of links to get you going.

And to our Jewish readers -- and extended family -- a hearty l'Shnah Tovah for the start of the New Year this weekend. We don't know about you, but we'll still be writing 5772 on our checks for weeks.

Here's a sneak-peek at tomorrow's story on Pennsylvania's voter identification law. It was written by The Morning Call's crackerjack courts reporter Peter Hall, with an assist from your humble blogger.

PHILADELPHIA _ The future of Pennsylvania’s politically-charged and twice-challenged Voter ID law may
depend on whether the state’s Supreme Court views it as a restriction on the right to vote or simply a way for the state to regulate elections.

Arguing Thursday before the six justices of the Supreme Court, an attorney representing a dozen Pennsylvania residents said the hurdles his clients and many other voters face in obtaining a driver’s license or other photo ID in order to vote effectively deny them the fundamental right to vote.

But lawyers for the state, Gov. Tom Corbett and Secretary of State Carol Aichele say there’s no evidence the requirement will keep significant numbers of people away from the polls.

The 11/2-hour hearing at Philadelphia’s City Hall put Pennsylvania back in a national spotlight as the groups argued the fate of a law that critics say will disproportionately affect the poor and racial minorities, giving Republicans an edge in this year’s federal election.

With a standing-room-only audience and more spectators watching in a nearby courtroom, the justices grilled attorneys on why they should or should not block the law’s enforcement.

The redrawn topography of Pennsylvania's 203 House districts and 50 state Senate seats puts politics ahead
of the interests of the voters, an attorney said as the state's highest court took up a challenges to the once-a-decade remapping of legislative districts across the state.

Gibson was representing Amanda Holt, a Lehigh Valley resident who made news earlier this year when her home-drawn legislative maps were cited in the high court's 4-3 decision tossing an earlier redistricting plan.

That action forced this year's state House and Senate elections to be based on maps in place since 2001

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, was also among the challengers.

A lawyer for legislative Republicans who controlled the process, meanwhile, told the high court that the map passed constitutional muster because it met the concerns of four justices who voted to reject the first plan in January. The lawyer, Joseph DelSol, also argued that the remapping process was inherently political.

"This process involves the legislative leadership for a reason. This is the process the people of Pennsylvania accepted and approved. It is a political process. There is no showing that anyone has done something that's improper here," Del Sol, a lawyer for the 5-member Legislative Reapportionment Commission, told the high court justices.

Good Afternoon, Everyone.
A divided state Pennsylvania Supreme Court just concluded oral arguments on the state's voter identification law. The six-judge panel is not expected to issue a decision today, though it is expected to act quickly, given that the Nov. 6 election is just weeks away.

The justices actively questioned lawyers for the state and the plaintiffs, a move that one attorney involved in the case said was unusual, but not surprising, given the level of public interest in the case.

Across the street from City Hall, in Philadelphia's Love Park this morning, protesters gathered early to rally
against the law. Attendees included organized labor, the state branch of the NAACP and the left-leaning activist group MoveOn.org.

The law before the high court Thursday was a "crime against democracy," state NAACP President Jerome Mondesire told the crowd.

"We're here for one reason: to let the governor and the Republican Legislature know that Voter ID is wrong and a lie and we're not giving up," Mondesire said, adding later. "We're not playing. We're not giving up."

The Rev. Bill Moore of the city's Tenth Memorial Baptist Church evoked images of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, telling the crowd in an opening prayer that "we've come too far to turn back now. Too many people have died and we're not going to trample on their blood."

NAACP national President Ben Jealous said the civil rights group had foght the law as it had in other states and expected to be victorious in Pennsylvania.

"We have seen more states passing laws pushing voters off the ballot than we have in the last 100 years," he said.

In the crowd, protesters offered similar sentiments. Several described the law as an attempt by Republicans to disenfranchise the poor, elderly, minorities and other voters who have traditionally voted Democratic.

"I am so outraged," said Anne Carroll, 69, who made the trip from her home in Collingswood, N.J., to attend the rally. "Even though this doesn't affect me ... We are going back to Jim Crow days. I'm so outraged."

Joe Mircetti, 67, of Springfield, Delaware County, dismissed the law as "stealing the vote."

"It's absolutely not fair," he said.

About a half-block away, city resident Walker Ferguson said he couldn't understand why people were protesting the law.

"It shouldn't be just anybody," casting their ballot on Election Day, he said. "Maybe someone else doesn't see it that way. But I don't think it's right and fair to the citizens who helped build America."

Currently at six-members with the suspension of Justice Joan Orie Melvin, the Supremes are evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, which makes today's proceedings the legal equivalent of must-see TV.

Speaking of which, today's proceedings are being carried live by our friends at the Pennsylvania Cable Network, which is available on finer cable systems (but not satellite TV) near you.

Police in Harrisburg are investigating a break-in at the Pennsylvania Democratic Committee office in which two laptops and a camcorder were stolen.

Investigators on Tuesday released a photo of the man they believe stolen the items from the office in early July. Police Capt. Elijah Massey declined to tell The Patriot-News of Harrisburg why authorities have waited two months to release information about the break-in.

Police say there was no sign of forced entry and the burglary was a lone incident.

The committee office is located on the eighth floor of a downtown office building.

Good Wednesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
We're on the road today and blogging from one of our Commonwealth's finer Green Cup chain coffee establishments. As is so often the case in these instances, we're running late and severely under-caffeinated, so we'll just get right on with things.

Orie's attorney, William C. Costopoulos, of Harrisburg, filed the notice to appeal with the state Superior Court on Monday. The two-page filing does not provide reasons for the appeal. Costopoulos did not return the newspaper's calls for comment.

The Allegheny County Republican was sentenced to 2.5 years to 10 years in jail on June 4 after being found guilty on 24 public corruption counts. She's serving her sentence at the state prison in Crawford County.

The rest of today's news starts now.

Our Condolences This Morning ...
... to the family of state Sen. Mike Brubaker, R-Lancaster, whose son, Ryan Brubaker, 21, has died of what officials are describing as an accidental drug overdose.

According to the Associated Press:

"Police said Tuesday that Ryan Brubaker's body was discovered shortly after 8 a.m. by a family member at their home in Lancaster County. Brubaker is the son of state Sen. Michael Brubaker.
Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantonitold the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era that the young man's death appears to be an accident, and a toxicology report is forthcoming.

The younger Brubaker had several drug-related charges and driving-under-the-influence charges pending against him in court.

In one case, he was charged earlier this year after police say he exchanged prescription drugs with another young man, who later died of a drug overdose.

Gov. Tom Corbett said this week that he's not expecting any "snafus" on Election Day because of
Pennsylvania's controversial voter identification law -- which is the subject of a state Supreme Court hearing on Thursday.

"Here's the question: I keep hearing 'snafus' Let me see your driver's license;' That's what it is," Corbett told reporters after an appearance in Lebanon County on Monday. "It's 'Do you have photo ID?' Either you come in, you sign in, I'm basing it upon my ward, my polling place. I sign a sheet of paper. The only thing I'm going to do different is show them a photo ID.

"So I see no reason for a snafu there," Corbett said after being asked whether the Department of State was ready to implement the law requiring people to show photo identification every time they vote.

"They're going to look at the photo ID, look at my face and go "Ok". Now, I can tell you they all know me in my ward. But in a lot of areas they wouldn't," he concluded.

Opponents of the law say it's not that simple, charging that those with long-expired IDs or, for instance, married women whose names on voter rolls and their ID cards don't match, could be turned away.

"There's still a lot of misunderstanding on what constitutes a proper form of identification," state Rep. Robert Freeman, D-Northampton, said. "There's a much narrower scope than people think there is."

The state has done its part to educate voters on the requirements of Pennsylvania's new voter identification law, now it's up to counties to finish the job, Corbett said."We are going through the education process right now," he said.

Getting things right on the ground on Nov. 6 "is up to the counties to make sure they do it right with workers at the polling places," he said. "We're educating voters that they have the right to vote, but they have to have a photo ID and they have to be registered to vote. We still want people to get registered."

Good Tuesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.Gov. Tom Corbett says he's looking for state lawmakers to pass his
delayed charter school reforms during this fall's abbreviated legislative session. But when it comes to transportation funding and selling Pennsylvania's state-owned liquor stores, this year is fine and next year is just as good.

"Certainly, the charter bill we were working on back during the budget, the funding formula that we were working on during the budget, I'd like to see us get that done," the Republican said in an interview after a ceremonial bill-signing in Lebanon on Monday afternoon. "I think the school districts would like to see us get that done because it would help them with their planning for the years ahead. And there's certainly enough time for them to get both of those done."

The House and Senate return to voting sessions on Sept. 24 and the two chambers are only in session for about eight to 10 days before a lengthy Election season break.

Lawmakers have called off the traditional post-election "lame-duck" session, which means any work that isn't finished before the end of October will have to start from scratch in 2013.

Whether lawmakers go along with Corbett's plans is anyone's guess. Legislators have been historically loath to tackle big-ticket issues in an election year. And earlier this summer, one senior House Republican said he believed any legislative heavy-lifting would be put off until 2013.

Asked whether lawmakers might end up spinning their wheels and wasting the taxpayers' time and money, Corbett responded, "I don't think it's ever a waste of time when you're there."

And despite a push from lawmakers to implement the findings of the administration's transportation advisory council, Corbett sent a clear signal that that's an issue for 2013. Ditto for privatizing the liquor stores.

"Transportation, that will be next year," he said. "I know [House Majority Leader Mike] Turzai would still like the LCB [sold], we've been talking to him. If we can get it done this year, that'll be great. If not, we'll just keep on working."

Corbett also hinted at a serious push to reform the state's pension system would be a 2013 issue as well. A legislative committee earlier this summer heard testimony on proposals to move state employees into retirement plans similar to a 401(k) used in the private sector.

"This year is making everybody ... is letting people know we've got a problem with the pensions. And they will continue to eat more and more of the budget if we don't start working on some solutions," he said. "I keep repeating, there's no silver bullet solution. Nothing's going to be easy. Obviously, that's long-term. That's going to affect the budget next year ... we're going to have to take a look at it."

Pennsylvania's Marcellus shale natural gas drillers have paid about $200 million in
local impact fees to county governments since the state's new gas drilling fee went on the books in March, the Pennsyvlania Public Utility Commission said this afternoon.

Drillers had until Sept. 1 to remit their 2011 payments to the agency, which is responsible for collecting and disbursing the money intende to cover the public infrastructure cost of natural gas exploration. Under the state's drilling law, 60 percent of the money goes to counties and local governments and 40 percent goes to statewide uses.

Jennifer Kocher, a PUC spokeswoman, said the agency had not made public projections on how much it expected to collect from drillers during the first year of the law. She noted that the state had nearly met its initial projection of $205 million.

"We didn't want to give any false indications as to what money might be available," she said.

The state will begin making its payments to local and county governments starting Dec. 1, Kocher said.

Here's a searchable spreadsheet of what the drillers retroactively paid on wells that were in production in 2011:

At an appearance in Lebanon County on Monday, Corbett said he believed it was a "mistake" for the presidential campaigns and their supporters to be absent from the state's airwarves.

"I think Pennsylvania is still very much in play in my travels across the state," Corbett said. "Obviously they're looking at where they're going to spend money around the country. I'm looking at Pennsylvania. I think Pennsylvania is a very competitive state."

Asked what evidence he had to support that conclusion when public polls have shown Obama with a consistent lead in Pennsylvania, Corbett said that in his "ravels across the state, I think there's a great deal of support for Governor Romney."

"I think in regard to the President his record in the last four years being questioned, what, today's Monday after the convention is over? It's a little early to see what the convention did. Polls today change every other day, every third day. Anything can affect it. I'm not giving up on Pennsylvania," he said.

Asked about the decision by Democratically and Republican-leaning super PACs to also pull their advertising, Corbett said, "They don't consult with me on that. They have their own money."

Corbett said "we haven't gotten into those kinds of discussions," when he was asked about any conversations with Romney's campaign about bringing the former Massachusetts governor to the state.